The final Thursday of the month is upon us, meaning the full Metro Board of Directors will convene at Metro HQ in downtown Los Angeles tomorrow at 9 a.m. for their regular meeting. The meeting, of course, is open to the public; the Metro building is adjacent to Union Station.
Here’s the agenda, along with links to staff reports and motions related to the various items.
As Board meetings go, this one doesn’t appear to be action-packed. Most of the items are administrative in nature — there are no big-ticket project approvals as we’ve seen in prior months.
Thumbing through the agenda, four items stand out — the links below are to staff reports:
•The Board will vote on whether to make the following name changes to Metro rail and bus stations:
A. “Imperial/Wilmington/Rosa Parks” to “Willowbrook/Rosa Parks;”
B. “103rd Street/Kenneth Hahn” to “103rd St/Watts Towers/Kenneth Hahn;”
C. “Vermont Av/I-105″ to “Vermont Av/Athens;”
D. “Hawthorne Bl/I-105″ to “Hawthorne Bl/Lennox;”
E. “Venice/Robertson” to “Culver City;”and
F. “Artesia Transit Center” to “Harbor Gateway Transit Center.”
Here’s an earlier post about that issue.
Keep reading for more items and a map of potential bus rapid transit corridors in the county.
•The Board will vote on hiring a consultant to identify bus rapid transit corridors around Los Angeles County. This item is in response to an earlier motion by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is currently the Board Chair. The staff report includes the map below and mentions many corridors that could be candidates and recommends hiring a consultant to build upon an earlier study of bus routes in the county.
•The Board will be asked to consider a contract worth up to $57.5 million to extend the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department contract to patrol Metro trains, buses and stations.
•Four Board Members have submitted a motion asking that testing of locked gates be continued at busier rail stations, including 7th/Metro in downtown L.A. The idea is to generate more data about the type of fare media that Metro patrons are using, as well as better numbers on fare evasion and the types of Metro passes that customers have.
•The Board will consider a $37.3-million contract to CH2M Hill Inc. to prepare the environmental studies for the 710 gap project, which will consider a variety of alternatives for improving traffic in the 710 gap area between Alhambra and Pasadena.
Why do we continue to have 2 different Slauson stations?
Slauson Blue Line Station and
Slauson Silver Line Station
Please fix!
Unless the area around the station is named for some politician, how about not naming the station after any politicians?
(Yes, I know it hurts their egos, but too bad)
How come there are no turnstiles to go through when transferring from the Red/Purple to the Blue Line at 7th/Metro Center?
There must be tons of fare evasion going on, especially since to go to the ticket machine to buy the new ticket for the next line, you have to exit the exisiting turnstiles.
(Which I am sure is what everyone is doing since you get to miss the connection and may have to wait up to 20 minutes for the next Blue Line train…right?)
Here’s one for the Metro staff to fix – please change “Redondo Beach” station to “Redondo Beach Ave” Station. It provides confusion, especially for tourists who want to go to the beach…and then realize the staiton is not walking distance at all to the ocean. I understand Metro will be changing “Anaheim” station to “Anaheim St” station on the Blue Line…the same should be done for “Redondo Beach” station on the Green Line.
Thanks!
@John McCready
The opinion of Metro wasting taxpayer money on things that “do not move” is a gross underestimate.
Public transits across the world do not rely on fare revenues alone. Many public transit agencies receives additional sources of income from utilizing real estate that they own, which includes economic activity from train stations and transit centers. Revenue earned from things that “do not move” puts money into Metro’s budget to keep our transit system running.
With that regard however, Metro does need to do a much better job in maximizing the revenue earning opportunities from their existing real estate that they own. The Hong Kong MTR makes billions in revenue from real estate income from the properties that they own, mainly rental and profit sharing income from businesses at the train station. In contrast the LAX/Aviation Green Line station is totally void of any business activity which otherwise would be put to better use by demolishing the plant spaces there and building a mini-CVS Pharmacy or something.
Say Steve,
Why is Union Station deleted from the Locked Turnstile motion? I’d love to see LA Metro lock those gates, but instead of 1pm to 4pm, why not, say, 6am to 9am?
Hmmm??
@Frank M
“Wilshire/Vermont change name to East Koreatown = RL06
Vermont/Beverly change name to Thai Town = RL07″
How about we first consult the people from the community before we give the station an arbitrary name that’s not even an accurate description of the area?
When I get off at Vermont/Beverly, lessee, I see a Korean-owned hotel, a Filipino fast food joint, and an El Salvadoran gift shop.
Dude, it’s NOT Thai Town. You’re three stops off (Hollywood/Western.”
Steve Hymon,
Could we have some honest and tranparent numbers concerning how much staffing (i.e. how many people) these “locked turnstile” exercises are utilizing? What are the salaries/pay levels of the persons involved (A reminder this is public record, so it can be looked up)?
That way we can do the math and figure out how much the per second or per minute costs are for the 50-odd citiations and 5 arrests credited to “locked turnstiles”.
@Erik G.
If the hearing results say otherwise, it seems we’ll have the results in two weeks.
Furthermore, this test isn’t just about locking the gates. There are other things going on behind the scenes such as data collecting how Metro riders commute and simulating the revenue stream on a distance fare system.
IMO, this gate locking experiment is doing a lot more than what Metro has been doing for the past ten years. You can’t start off something without hard data collecting, and analyzing data is a vital key in strategizing how to manage and fund public transit especially at a time of budget cuts.
I still say that without Metrolink on TAP (which seems unlikely anytime soon), locking Union Station and 7th Street will be problematic. It always casues a large back up when the Sheriffs do fare checks at the turnstiles during peak hour and I can’t imagine this will be any better. If people have to go through weeks of “testing” that cause them to repeatedly miss their Metrolink train or show up late to work, it could cost ridership on both systems. But then maybe I’m biased because I love the ease and speed of walking through without digging around for my monthly Metrolink pass.